Two injured in Winthrop Street crash

John Briggs says he was in his house on the computer when he heard what sounded like the beep of a car horn.

Briggs, who lives at 268 Winthrop St., is not unaccustomed to noises associated with traffic. He lives next door to Planet Petroleum gas station.

But he said until Wednesday afternoon he'd never seen a car sail across his front yard.

"I just happened to look out the window," Briggs, 47, said. "It flew right through the air and right into my tree —I can only guess it was going 50."

The 12:45 p.m. crash resulted in injuries to the driver and his male passenger.

Briggs said he saw the early model Ford Explorer — which was travelling east when it veered off the road — launch off of the frozen snowbank separating his house from Planet Petroleum.

"It came off the bank smooth, like it was a ramp," he said. "I've never seen anything like that."

Police identified the driver as 36-year-old Hilary J. Bury of 110 Shores St. The identity of Bury's passenger was not immediately available.

Briggs said after the vehicle smashed into and bounced off the tree, which was damaged but remained intact, the driver (Bury) got out and staggered around a bit before Briggs told him to take it easy and sit down.

But he says the passenger was unconscious and looked to be "bad off."

Briggs said neither man was wearing a seatbelt, which he notes can be a recipe for disaster when a crash occurs and air bags deploy, which is what happened this time.

He also said in more than two years he's lived on Winthrop Street/Route 44, he's seen too many accidents in front of his house and too much speeding up and down the busy two-lane highway.

Briggs said some of those accidents have happened as vehicles cut left across traffic to enter Fairview Avenue, which is sometimes used as a shortcut to avoid having to turn left at the traffic lights onto Highland Street.

A spokesman for Morton Hospital said Bury was treated and released. There was no information available for the unidentified passenger.

Standing in his yard as paramedics loaded the driver and his passenger into an ambulance, Briggs surveyed large shards and chunks of wood torn from the tree truck scattered on the ground.